


It Isn't Always So Black And White

by tyanite



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Good Ruby, Human Ruby, Past, Pre-Series, Ruby 1 and Ruby 2 are different demons, Season 3 Ruby, Witch Ruby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyanite/pseuds/tyanite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby is many things, but before she was a demon, she was a sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Isn't Always So Black And White

**Author's Note:**

> Woah, wait what a piece of writing about Ruby??? And shes not evil????? WHAAAAA??????
> 
> From the very beginning of Ruby's introduction to the show, I really, really liked her. Season Three was my all time favorite Ruby, and I loved the idea of a Demon trying to do good. Especially when Ruby breaking from her duty to help the Winchesters parallels Castiel's break from his duty to help the Winchesters.  
> It really genuinely upset me when SURPRISE TWIST, RUBY WAS EVIL THE ENTIRE TIME...because it seemed so out of character for the Ruby we had been introduced to and gotten to know, and it just...didn't make sense. Plus it really highlighted some of the gross sexist problems that Supernatural kinda always had underlying it.  
> Especially when so much attention is given to the fact that Ruby remembers her past as a human, and when she states in Season 3 that she doesn't believe in Lucifer. Sure you can argue that they were all lies, but why even mention Lucifer if she was lying about it? It just...doesn't make sense. 
> 
> After the reveal of "Evil" Ruby, [Fallynleaf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf) and I were very upset. We noticed that Season 3 Ruby and Season 4 Ruby seem to be two completely different Demons. It never made any sense, when Ruby shows up again in Season 4 claiming she had managed to break out of Hell. Why would Lilith let her go? Why wouldn't Lilith bury her so deep in the Pit that she couldn't ever climb back out again? It just didn't make sense. Not to mention, her motivations seem to change a lot from Season 3 to Season 4.  
> So our theory has always been that another Demon, one loyal to Lucifer and Lilith, replaced Ruby after the end of Season 3 or maybe sometime during Season 4. Demons have been shown to be able to read people's minds, so it wouldn't have been too hard for this demon to simply fake their way through pretending to be Ruby. And Sam was vulnerable enough (having just lost Dean) that he would cling to anything familiar. 
> 
> ((I would have liked it even better, to be honest, if Ruby had accidentally unleashed Lucifer. Like, she didn't know and had unfortunately stumbled along the path of fate (just like Sam and Dean), unknowingly making it happen. It would have been even greater if Sam and Dean had still killed Ruby, especially if she was innocent in this. Because Sam and Dean shouldn't have all of their decisions justified by "THEY WERE EVIL," especially when there are so many blurred lines of grey in the next season.))
> 
> Phew. Deep breath. Okay.
> 
> So basically I channeled all of my frustration and fan theory into writing a little ditty about Ruby that accidentally turned into thinking about her back story. 
> 
> Ruby states that she was alive as a human during the Black Plague (in Europe I suppose) so roughly 1340~1350, and that she became a witch after dealing with Astaroth. She also talks about loosing people (although that is season 4 Ruby, but shh), and I thought it would be interesting if maybe Ruby was a sister. Like Sam and Dean are brothers. I am all about narrative parallels, alas!
> 
> This is probably not even close to historically accurate, and it is un-beta'd! Wow, much problem. Very impress. 
> 
> I do hope you enjoy it though. I know I would have loved a fic like this, so I hope there are others out there that can enjoy this too. I am sorry for the Author's Note that goes on for years.
> 
> Thank you and please enjoy! Kudos and Comments are _always_ welcome!

* * *

 

Ruby is many things, but a supporter of Lucifer? She is not.

She didn’t even believe in God when she was alive—why would she believe in a God when she was dead and a demon? No, Ruby definitely did not believe in Lucifer.

 

It’s funny, you’d think even as a child, when death and sorrow and misery was your life, that you would believe in something—God or the Devil or the doctors in the strange masks and flowers, something. But Ruby didn’t believe in any of it. She just believed in what she knew and she knew that her sisters were dying.

Ruby stood outside her house and watched the men as they spoke to her parents. She watched her mother collapse, wailing and clawing at her face and hair. Ruby did not weep this time, she had done so that morning when her sisters could not be roused. She had torn at her face and hair and clothes and beat herself and screamed until her father had dragged her away and told her to stand outside, _go wait outside, for God’s sake Ruby, don’t go back inside_.

However, Ruby _should_ be in there. She should be laying besides her sisters, sick and dying, with those lumps on her skin. But she had been sulking and sullen and had refused to sleep with her sisters when they went to bed in the loft. She had stayed curled by the hearth all night, and because of that, Ruby was left standing outside her house while her sisters were dying inside.

Ruby watched her parents weeping and turned away, trudging across the muddy landscape, her hands clenched tight into fists. She wasn’t entirely sure of where she was going, or that she had really moved at all, she was just moving. Walking turned to a jog, which turned into a run. She ran until her legs were on fire and every breath was drawn with a sharp pain in her chest but she kept running.

Her foot caught something—a tree branch, or a rock, and she fell forward onto the muddy ground, face first in the unforgiving dirt. Flat on her stomach on the ground, the world spun around Ruby so violently, she couldn’t even bring herself to sit up. She just lay there and shook with each painful breath.

“What is this?” A soft voice came from above her, a hand landing delicately on her back. “What is this?”

Ruby forced her shaking limbs to push her up and warm hands wrapped around her arms. She looked into the face of an old woman, all wrapped in shawls and smelling of dried herbs and flowers. Ruby knew her—or maybe she was a stranger, but Ruby didn’t care. She let out a gasp and the woman drew her into an embrace.

“Shh, shh…there there…Tell me, what troubles you little one?” The woman hummed, her fingers running through Ruby’s hair.

“My—My sisters.” Ruby gasped into the woman’s scratchy woolen layers. “They have the sickness, they—“

“Ah, ah…” The woman crooned and rocked Ruby a little. “Say no more, Aunty Astaroth’s got you…”

Ruby pressed her face into the woman but she could not cry. She only trembled. The woman, Astaroth— _had that always been her name?_ —placed her hands on Ruby’s shoulders and moved her back, placing a firm hand under Ruby’s chin, forcing her to look up.

“Aunty Astaroth has been on this earth a very long time, little one. She knows how to cure your sisters.”

“You do?” Ruby stared at the woman.

 “I do.”

“Would you heal them?” Ruby grabbed for Astaroth’s hands, gripping them tight. “Would you?”

“No, little one.” Astaroth shook her head and freed her hands from Ruby’s, patting them. “But I can teach you how. I can teach you how to do a great many things, if you do one, tiny, little thing.”

“What? What do I need to do?”

Astaroth gripped Ruby and pulled her closer. She leaned down and whispered into the girl’s ear.

Ruby pulled away, frowning. “But…” She said, hesitantly.

“It is a small price to pay,” Astaroth said, pressing her fingers against Ruby’s lips, “for your sisters.”

Ruby swallowed hard.

“Well, girl?” Astaroth asked, withdrawing. “What will it be?”

Ruby didn’t look to the sky, or down to the earth. Ruby just looked at the old woman before her and then nodded.

 

Ruby waited until night to creep up to the loft where her sisters were sleeping. She scooted close, brushing sweat-drenched hair from fevered faces. She lifted their heads and placed the small bundles under their pillows.

Ruby sat between them and gripped their hands. She closed her eyes and chanted the words Astaroth had taught her. The words that she had been repeating to herself while she made the bags, the bundles filled with bones and herbs. The words Astaroth had promised would cure her sisters.

When she finished, silence was thick and heavy in the loft.

For a terrible, long moment, Ruby thought it hadn’t worked. But then Alys hummed in her sleep and rolled onto her side, a smile on her lips. Kara’s dark eyes flickered open and she squinted through the darkness of the loft.

“Ruby?” She asked, her voice rough with sleep. “What…?”

“Shh…” Ruby sighed softly, brushing Kara’s soft features. “Go back to sleep.”

Kara nodded and held out her hands and Ruby gratefully curled into them, falling asleep pressed between her sisters as she should always have done.

 

Astaroth returned, this time as a village girl and not an old woman. She brought the Book with her, and when Ruby said she could not read, Astaroth merely tapped her fingers to Ruby’s head and suddenly, Ruby could.

Ruby read the Book every night, every day she would meet with Astaroth and they would sit around a fallen log not far from where Ruby first met Astaroth, the old woman, not the girl, and they would work their rituals together.

Those who had fallen ill in the town were mysteriously cured over night, and the fields yielded greater crop than they ever had before. The cattle birthed twins, and Mary birthed a healthy boy and things were good. The men praised God, the women whispered of the Devil. Ruby had her sisters, Astaroth and the Book.

Every night, Ruby slept pressed between Kara and Alys, no matter how much Alys squirmed or wiggled around, or how loud Kara snored.

 

Ruby only remembers fragments of the events that lead to her death. She remembered old women watching her and Astaroth from afar and whispering, and she remembered men asking after her and her sisters.  

Ruby remembered Kara finding the Book, the look of horror in her elder sisters eyes. She remembered begging Kara not to tell anybody, gripping her sisters arm tight.

“I did it to save you,” she begged, “I had to save you and Alys.”

She remembered Kara softening, pulling Ruby close and holding her close to her chest and petting her little sisters hair.

“You shouldn’t have done that Ruby,” Kara whispered against Ruby’s temple. “It wasn’t worth it, Ruby.”

“My family is worth my soul,” was all Ruby had responded.

Then, she remembers she was playing with Alys, braiding meadow flowers into Alys’ golden hair, when they came for her. They accuse her of witchcraft, which she did, and they accuse her of worshiping the devil, which she didn’t.

Ruby remembered how the ropes dug into the flesh of her wrist, and she remembered Alys being pulled back, screaming, by Kara. She remembered how Kara wept and Alys fought and how her parents just stared.

Ruby burned on a stake and then she burned on a rack. Really, its not very different. She would close her eyes in Hell when she can—when they haven’t been flayed off or cut out—and she would think of her sisters.

 

Ruby thought the end of the world was coming. It did, in many ways, end for her there. One ugly morning outside her house, while her mother wailed and her father wept and her sisters died. But she stopped it. One stupid, silly girl sold her soul to save her world.

  Maybe that’s why she was so eager to save the world again. Just one stupid, silly demon and two human brothers to save their world.

 

They let her watch, as the other demon takes her place besides Sam. Ruby screams and fights her restraints and shouts for Sam to see, to understand, to know that the Demon before him is not who she claims to be.

Her excuses are flimsy. But Sam believes her. She’s Lilith’s pet, how can that be more obvious? She’s used their memories but she’s only a shadow of a demon that Ruby was. How can Sam not see her? Didn’t Sam know her?

_See me, Sam! Look at me! Don’t you see that is an impostor?!_

Lilith laughs and runs a hand over Ruby’s chest, her fingers raking deeply into Ruby’s flesh. She presses her lips against Ruby’s ear.

“He cannot hear you, honey.” Lilith whispers. “Sammy won’t be hearing anything from you anymore, Ruby.”

Ruby just screams as Lilith drags her deeper into the Pit.

 

Ruby is many things, but the demon sitting on Sam’s shoulder? She is not. Well, not anymore.


End file.
